The Language of Clothes by Alison Lurie – a 1981 take on fashion

I came across this 1981 book in a bibliography listing in another book about fashion. I was familiar with the writer's fiction, and thought it would be interesting to get her take, so I requested it through an inter-library loan.

I'm sorry to report that the material feels quite dated, and that the book was not written very objectively. Lurie is very judgmental and her style is preachy: in a chapter labeled "Male and Female" she wrote that "toreador" and "Capri" pants (her quotes) came "in odd, glaring colors and ended a tight, awkward six inches above the ankle as if they had shrunk in the wash." She also wrote that "Although women in male clothes usually look like gentlemen, men who wear women's clothes, unless they are genuine transsexuals, seem to imitate the most vulgar and unattractive form of female dress, as if in a spirit of deliberate and hostile parody."

It seems as though we've come a long way since 1981...